The Long Goodbye
|
List Price: Our Price: $10.49 You Save: $4.49 (30%) Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Buy Used: from $3.15 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
Movie Reviews of The Long Goodbye
Movie Review: My Favorite Altman
Summary: 5 Stars
Feeding the cat...those girls shold put on a sweater. Love this movie, 50's detective noir set in 70's California. The beach, the hospital, Mexico, the supermarket, it's all great - and the theme song keeps going throughout over and over. Final scene pays homage to The Third Man, beautiful. A bit of violence, but "That's how I treat someone I love, and I don't even like you". Never seen an Elliot Gould movie I like more than this, & it's my favorite Altman as well.Movie Review: Altman's overlooked 70s masterpiece
Summary: 5 Stars
Often overlooked, Robert Altman's 'The Long Goodbye' is arguably one of THE films exemplifying the 1970s and, although far less dark, ranks alongside Antonioni's 'The Passenger'.
Propelling Marlowe into the opulent, 'promise' of the west coast 1970s USA, Altman allows the story to unfold around a classic murder, mystery story and the stunning cast help to create an atmosphere of parochial 'goings-on' that can subsequently be seen in the works of David Lynch, Tarrantino and, more recently, the 'Sopranos'. The late, great Sterling Hayden gives an unforgetable, bullying, volatile King Lear-like performance as the ageing, impotent, alcoholic writer, and Mark Rydell's 'dangerous' violent character anticipates that which Martin Scorsese and Joe Pesci create latterly in Goodfellas/Casino. Moreover, there's an uncredited cameo appearance of a moustachioed Arnold (Schwarzenneger) as a 'heavy'.
However its Elliiot's Gould's brilliant (Oscar deserving) performance as Philip Marlowe that helps to seal this film's status into the canon of GREAT films.
Gould creates a sharp, amiable, chain-smoking, wise-cracking 70s detective whose 'quirky-alone' livestyle allow him the freedom to give his own Chandleresque, talking-to-himself dialogue (...'it's alright by me...') whilst interacting with a diverse range of characters within the narrative. With respect to this, there's the continual variation of the haunting melody, 'The Long Goodbye' that is re-worked throughout the film thus floating the narrative structure within changing and moving events and themes yet anchoring it to the overall thread of the story itself.
Altman's direction is that of a genius at work: the back-drop of the oceanic tug and wash of the tide as seen through the windows of the seductive though manipulative Eilleen Wade's windows (Nina Van Pallandt), together with slightly surreal and erotic appartment setting of Marlowe's flat make this film unforgetable. There's also the tension associated with the 'journeys' to Mexico: a theme used in more recent (great) films including 'Lone Star'; 'Traffic'; and, 'The Three burials of Melquiades Estrada'. Who can deny the impact of the opening 'cat' scene and the final 'chapter' of the film set within the avenue of trees; the 'oh-too-late' figure of Eileen Wade heading in the opposite direction to Marlowe who ironically celebrates his parochial sense of closure by playing the minature harmonica.
If ever a film rated as a '6' for special merit and sheer enjoyment then this is one of the elite few deserving of such an award! I urge you to watch or re-watch this film and savour a work of pure genius. As a commentator and fan of such a seminal film, I can only hope that Robert Altman and-or Elliot Gould can provide a commentary-enhanced (Criterion edition )DVD.
Movie Review: Minus 100
Summary: 1 Stars
Sorry, this movie just didn't work. Tried to watch it twice, and just couldn't get through the whole thing. Was it supposed to be a thriller? A murder mystery? A comedy? A drama? What?
Don't waste your time. If there are any other Philip Marlowe films out there, try them instead. Nothing could be as bad and weak as this film. The only thing I liked about it was the cat (which I am not sure was ever fed!!).
Movie Review: Altman Missed the Boat by a mile
Summary: 3 Stars
I share Leonard Maltin's view that Altman's version of The Long Goodbye was largely disrespectful of Raymond Chandler. If you want to see a fairly offbeat, and mildly interesting film, it's worth checking out. If however you're expecting it to resonate at all with the book, you'll be underwhelmed. The opening cat scene is a dead giveaway that the director is out of touch with the story. Gould could have pulled off the Marlowe character, if there wasn't so much method acting, mumbling 70's, anti hero angst to his character. The fault lies at hands of Altman not Gould. The casting of Sterling Hayden was masterful, as was the cinematography, and the clever use of the theme song. I am hoping one of these days, we actually can see a true film version of "The Long Goodbye".Movie Review: A very good Robert Altman movie
Summary: 4 Stars
Robert Altman's film of Raymond Chandler's THE LONG GOODBYE has been called one of the 1970's greatest films and a knockout by Pauline Kael, but Leonard Maltin only gives it a **1/2 (out of ****) and says its jokey approach to the mystery genre borders on contempt. I have a fondness for it because I like both Los Angeles and Altman's movies.
Made in 1973, between the towering masterpieces McCABE AND MRS. MILLER (1971) and NASHVILLE (1975), GOODBYE at very least has one of the greatest opening scenes Altman has ever made. It is 3:00 a.m. in West Los Angeles, and private eye Philip Marlowe (Elliot Gould) gets a wake up call from a cat who is hungry. There is no cat food in his apartment, so he heads to an all night market. He is stopped by strippers making marijuana brownies in a nearby apartment: "Oh, Mr. Marlowe, Mr. Marlowe, would you mind getting us some brownie mix? We will save you some." "Sure thing, girls," Marlowe calls back as he lights the fifth or sixth of about a thousand cigarettes he smokes during 112 minutes of movie. Then at the market, Marlowe keeps muttering, "Damned cat needs food. It's 3:00 in the goddam morning, and my goddam cat needs food." As best I can tell, he does remember to get the brownie mix for his friendly insomniac neighbors. It is a fabulous sequence, backed by a stunning bluesy title song by John Williams and Johnny Mercer. This is the city of lost souls and where no one really sleeps.
I don't remember any of this being in Chandler's 1953 novel, which is also set in 1953 and not 1973. But I think it would amuse him. What IS in the book, I am pretty sure, is the next sequence of scenes: Marlowe drives friend Terry Lennox (Jim Boulton) to Tiajuana in the wee hours, then is interrogated by cops at dawn back at Marlowe's apartment. It seems that Terry Lennox's wife Sylvia has been murdered tonight. Backed by a smokey jazz instrumental score by John Williams at his very best, this crime is at the heart of a novel I love.
But there is another crime: missing person bureau. An alcoholic writer (bearded Sterling Hayden) named Wade has vanished, seemingly to an exclusive Malibu Beach Colony apartment to be alone with his writing. His wife (a fabulous and very beautiful Nina van Pallandt) wants him back. The trail here leads to a sinister psychiatrist (an imaginatively cast Henry Gibson) and a hyperactive mob boss named Marty Augustine (Mark Rydell) as the two crimes are weaved together. Mrs. Wade wants her husband back, and Augustine wants his mob money back. Agustine certainly has psychotic methods of getting his way, including smashing a Coke bottle in his innocent mistress' face, leaving her a bloody pulp beyond anything in any GODFATHER film. (An unfazed Kael ludicrously compares the horrible crime to Cagney smashing a grapefruit in mistress Mae Clarke's face in THE PUBLIC ENEMY.) Augustine's next line is comic nasty and addressed to Marlowe: "Now that's someone I love. You I don't even like." The crime almost derailed the last third of a very good movie for me.
In the last third of THE LONG GOODBYE, which is exquisitely photographed in Panavision by the great Vilmos Zsigmond, we travel around different very fresh West Los Angeles spots I remember fondly from UCLA college days in 1973. This is one of the great Los Angeles movies, as is another Altman masterpiece, SHORT CUTS (1993). We solve the disappearance of Wade in an unforgettable visual poetry scene I don't want to spoil for you. And we solve the murder of Sylvia Lennox and the puzzle of why Terry is hiding out...where he is hiding out. A movie that opens with a jazzy instrumental rendition of "Hooray For Hollywood" ends with a scratchy vocal recording of that song as...something happens that I find satisfying while others have found controversial.
Does Marlowe get his brownies? Does Elliott Gould still smoke like Bogart? Except for Marty Augustine's savage temper (cover your face during the horrible Coke bottle scene), I really like what Robert Altman and credited writer Leigh Brackett have done to update a great Raymond Chandler novel. It fondly evokes the Los Angeles I loved while a college student at UCLA in the early 1970's. And the cast is impeccable. See THE LONG GOODBYE on widescreen DVD, then read the novel. Or vice-versa.